Wednesday Wisdom
by Jay Jay Speaks
October 12, 2011
Divine Disasters & Holy Hell
Many of you reading this will find this thought provoking and will do nothing. Other who read this will find enough merit to consider action. While yet a smaller group will allow these seeds to grow in their lives to the point where the harvest will be action. I’m not sure which group you fall into, but I want to say thank you for reading.
It isn’t unusual in today’s times to find family, friends and acquaintances going through hard or difficult times. I’m sure everyone reading this column can think of someone going through an ordeal concerning their personal relationships, their career (work), their money or health. We can place a name and face next to each of those categories, including our own. For those of you who are people of faith, you have probably prayed about these concerns and asked the Lord, to guide you, strengthen you, and save you. For many you may have also decided to fast for a period of time seeking divine guidance from above to rescue you from your current turmoil. I’m not casting any stones at those seeking HOLY HELP or DIVINE DIRECTION as to the solution to their problems but I do want to pose this curious question.
WHAT IF IT IS GOD WHO HAS ALLOWED OR CREATED YOUR TURMOIL? What if it is God who has caused the personal disaster you are experiencing? If it is God, what do you do now?
If you consider that the “all powerful,” “all knowing,” “all seeing,” “all present” God many people profess to serve is allowing your marriage to be turned upside down, is allowing your workplace to become hostile and spiritually violent, is allowing your financial investments to tank, is allowing your personal relationships (romantic or platonic) to sour, one must ask the question…”WHY?”
Why would God allow me to suffer? Why would God allow my family to begin to fall apart? Why would God jeopardize my job? Why would God allow my enemies to prevail against me? Why? Why? Why?
Anyone raised in the church or who knows “church folks” has heard the phrase, “The Lord works in mysterious ways.” I’m not 100% sure what that means in every circumstance but here is something I have learned through my own recent hardships. People want to be comfortable. Most people if not 99% of the people out there want to reach a level of comfort where they can “seem” to be working and growing but “actually” have it on autopilot. Being comfortable usually means you stop moving forward. Being comfortable usually means you’re not as hungry as you were when you were uncomfortable. Being comfortable means it’s easy and likely that you are going to relax.
If you are not moving forward, not as hungry, taking it easy and relaxed God probably has something else, someone else, somewhere else he wants you to be. And being “ALL” that he is he knows that unless he troubles your waters and destroys the easy life you were setting up that YOU WILL NEVER GET THERE!
This doesn’t mean that God doesn’t want you to have a nice life but let’s be honest (here is where you’re going to get upset) there are many people who:
· Married the wrong person
· Had a child with the wrong person
· Have gotten in the wrong job
· Settled for the first opportunity that came along
· Have allowed insecurity to make their decisions
· Have let selfishness influence their life
· Have decided that they want what/who they want
· Have allowed other’s expectations to dictate their behavior their entire lives
· Or perhaps are SIMPLY AFRAID TO LIVE WITH COURAGE
If you consider the possibility that your storm may be divinely created, then you are praying to the person who created your trouble. You are asking that person to stop the storm, but why would he stop what he created without achieving his desired effect? What if God doesn’t want your storm to stop until, you stop. Until you stop doing it your way, stop living your way, stop living safely while professing Philippians 4:13, stop watching life pass you by.
Evaluate your trouble and ask yourself, if you have become lazy and soft. If those adjectives don’t suit you then ask yourself if you have become “COMFORTABLE.” Comfort isn’t a sin, but perhaps being comfortable with the wrong person, at the wrong job, in the wrong situation, in the wrong relationship at the wrong level, is the sin that he is trying to save you from.
Consider that today don’t wait until Monday, do it today (Wednesday) on HUMP DAY!
Comment section is awfully lonely :(
ReplyDeleteThis is really good! Sometimes the Lord will trouble the waters and He calms them when He is ready...not when we are. No matter how hard we pray. It's for our ultimate good.
ReplyDeleteHaving these storms come into our lives definitely take us out of our comfort zone. We may feel torn and battered as we go against the current and try to find a way out following our will and desires. However, if we listen to the Lord, He sees us through the storms and though the waves peak and valley, our ride is a bit smoother. We still have to ride the storm but we flow with it and not against it.
ReplyDeleteLike I learned learned in church today about Acts 27. Paul warned the crew not to go on but wait the winter out. They didn't listen to him and kept to sea. As a result, the goods and the ship were lost, but all the men were saved. They went a direction they were warned not to follow and paid the consequences, even fearing their own lives. However, the Lord still spared them. It's interesting, at the end of the chapter they used their anchors to try and save themselves. Had they kept the anchors as they were, they would not have survived. But by cutting those anchors lose, though the ship still crashed, they all survived. How often is that like our own lives, we have "anchors" that we use to stabilize ourselves when we need to release them to let the Lord work?
Excellently written and equally thought provoking (as prefaced). I look forward to a more thorough exchange of ideas once I am off of work. Definitely had to post as soon as I read it. Also I'm sending this link to some of my friends who are thinkers and fellow christians. -CK-
ReplyDeleteYes! This is definitely something to chew on... Perhaps God is using our situations to keep us alive and awakened. If we're on autopilot, life is living us and we're not living life.
ReplyDeleteI was in a service last week where the pastor gave the analogy of flying. He said "we never realize how fast we're going until there's turbulence, it is at those moments we recognize just how fast we're going." So maybe God gives us these things to prove to us that we're actually making more progress than we think or perceive.